


paradise circus

by openended



Category: Private Practice
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drugs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 08:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d like to see that, the darkness of sobriety turning to the unbearable brightness of being high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paradise circus

Methodical.

Crush, tap, snort one, snort two, lean back, breathe. Open your eyes.

Exhale.

Wait.

A wave crashing against the shore. Little laps at first, through your brain and neck. Then louder as it rushes down your spine, tingling across your arms and fingers. Feel the blood course through veins and arteries, your heart pumping everything and then your stomach and thighs and calves and even your toes.

And, _oh god_. Nothing better.

That’s what she loves about this. The high is perfect and nothing matters (nothing’s ever mattered, will ever matter) but feeling it hit and being alive and aware is incomparable. If the lights were out, she thinks she could watch the glow brighten through her veins, illuminating her like no scan known to modern medicine. She’d like to see that, the darkness of sobriety turning to the unbearable brightness of being high.

She trails her finger in the dusting of orange powder left on the nightstand, the remnants she’s never quite able to collect. Granules of bliss that she would lick off the dark wood if it had any chance of making her feel better than she does now.

Nothing could, so the fine dust stays where it is, to be wiped off later, tomorrow, sometime soon before someone can see it and ask. This is her secret. Letting anyone in will ruin the glow, the beauty.

She leans against the bed, the floor no longer hard underneath her. She exhales a slow stream of air and thinks that if she stares hard enough she can see the molecules bounce against each other, dance in the perfection that is this moment and no other. Dust particles float through the air, illuminated by the blinds she never quite shuts all the way. She blows on them, making them swirl in unexpected chaos.

 _Tick, tick._

She counts. Seventy-eight _tick_ s before she opens her eyes again and looks to the watch. She thinks she started at the six and lazily traces how far the big hand needs to move before she can take another.

Safety first was the only thing she learned in kindergarten.

She bites her thumb and her eyes lose focus on the watch, now just a black band with a white and gold circle.

 _I’m sorry, Daddy_ , a small child whispers.

Her head rolls back against the bed and her entire body glows.

Waves crash and she doesn’t know if it’s the ocean or her.

She doesn’t care.


End file.
